Rivas stared across the deck table at the fat smiling face and knew that no one had ever understood him as thoroughly.
«And is,» said Jaybush, «the offer still—how did you put it—'definitely, absolutely unattractive'?»
«No,» said Rivas.
Neither of the women at the table had seemed to be paying any particular attention to the conversation—Uri had been staring earnestly into Jaybush's face whether he was speaking or not, and Sister Windchime had been just as intently staring at her hands, wearing the expression of pained tenseness of someone who's just swallowed a too-big mouthful—but now Sister Windchime looked up and met Rivas's glance, and the look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes had doubled.
Jeez, kid, thought Rivas, I'm agreeing with your damned Messiah, your precious god.
The gondola was back, laden with steaming trays, and the waiter dextrously put the right plates in front of the right people and set out the drinks.
«But I'm afraid,» Rivas added, touching the sewn-in lump under his collar for reassurance, «I'm going to refuse.»
Jaybush, a forkful of some glowing trash halfway to his bulging mouth, paused to smile tolerantly. «Are you sure, my boy? Tell papa why.»
Rivas downed the remainder of his tequila and refilled his glass. «Well,» he said almost comfortably, sure now that he would never leave Deviant's Palace alive and that nothing he could say would change anything, «because of . . . a bald boy who died on a garbage heap. And a pile of old stove parts that died on a glass plain. And a murdering pimp who evoked, and died out of, loyalty. And a whore with a sense of justice. Am I boring you? And because of Sister Windchime, who has compassion, though you've tried hard to stamp it out of her. And because the hard selfish part of Greg Rivas is swimming around in a canal someplace.»
«I understand, my boy,» said Jaybush gently, putting down his fork. «What you need is to see a little show, isn't it?»
«No,» said Rivas unsteadily.
«I know you don't mean that.» Jaybush smiled and clapped his blubbery hands and raised his voice and called, «I need some volunteers from the audience!"As if all twitched by the same string, half a dozen people leaped up from chairs at various tables.
«One of the waiters is bringing around a boat,» Jaybush called to them. «I'd appreciate it if you'd all get into it, and he'll bring it to a spot right in front of this raft.»
Rivas watched as the six people, three of whom were women, stepped one by one into the boat the waiter was towing around the lagoon behind his gondola. At last the boat, with all of them on it now, was left rocking gently in front of Jaybush's raft table.
«Hi!» Jaybush called to the boat's occupants.
«Hi,» they all responded.
«How's everybody feeling? Glad to be here?»
An overlapping chorus replied, «Sure!» «You bet!» «Damn right!»
«Glad to hear it,» Jaybush assured them. «Now I want all of you to pay attention, okay? Please stand up—carefully, don't want you all tumbling into the water—and each of you look straight at me and hold out your hands, palms up, as if you were carrying a dish.»
Smiling cheerfully, the six people did as they were told, and after some jostling and elbowing they all stood facing Jaybush's raft and holding out cupped hands.
«Do you know what you're holding?» Jaybush asked.
They shook their heads, glanced at each other, shook their heads again. Rivas suspected that they'd been hypnotized.
«What each of you is holding is his or her own face,» said Jaybush forcefully. «You're all standing there holding your faces in your hands, and the fronts of your heads are as smooth as eggs! You're all absolutely identical! Good heavens, don't any of you drop your face, or get it switched with someone else's!»
None of the people moved, beyond some shiftings of weight and licking of lips, but now they were agitated, tense. Their hands were claws.
«You can't even speak!» marveled Jaybush. «You're just egg things.» He picked up a salt shaker and tossed it into the water. His face was placid, but he put panic into his voice as he said, «You dropped them! You've all dropped your faces in the water!»
All six of the people instantly leaped into the water, splashing Jaybush's raft and sending their boat rocking away.
«And are you, sir,» asked Jaybush, turning to Rivas, «holding on securely to your own face?»
«Yes.» Rivas peered down at the agitated water.
«Ah. Never any uncertainty about who it is in the mirror? Here's a question—if there's no mirror around, do you still have a face? Are you sure?» He followed the direction of Rivas's gaze. «Oh! Oh, no, my boy, they won't be coming back up. Would you?»
Involuntarily Rivas again touched the lump under his collar. «I . . . don't know.»
«Identities can erode,» Jaybush said. «I'm offering you the chance to armor yours and preserve it forever—but they can erode.» He extended one fat finger and leaned toward Sister Windchime. «Merge with the—»
«No,» said Rivas sharply.
Urania had stopped chewing her taco and was looking alarmed again.
Jaybush glanced at Rivas in feigned surprise. «I beg your pardon?»
«Don't give her the sacrament.»
Sister Windchime hadn't moved, but was staring hard at nothing and holding her fork so tightly that her knuckles were white.
«But you'd benefit too,» Jaybush told Rivas. «We'd share, if we were linked. I'm in a mood to consume both these girls tonight, right down to the core, and bequeath two more pocalocas to the Venice streets. Bang! Bang! Of course, if my partner objected, I wouldn't do it. Are you my partner?»
Rivas was somehow certain that if he said «Yes» now, he would not be able to take it back later; so he pursed his lips and rapidly whistled the first ten notes of Peter and the Wolf while simultaneously doing a gunning drum accompaniment with his knife and fork against the tabletop—and then a number of things happened all at once: Jaybush collapsed unconscious, Sister Sue registered clear surprise for the first time that evening, and a slingshot-propelled stone the size of a golf ball slammed hard into Rivas's solar plexus. He was knocked back almost out of his seat, and for a moment he hung half off the raft, staring down—then his pain-clenched muscles relaxed and he slumped back down and forward across his plate, sending huge sport shrimps rolling away across the table, and he lay that way for a while, gagging and retching to get air into his abused lungs. He'd glimpsed something in the water below him, but the agony in his chest left him no attention for it.
When, still wheezing, Rivas straightened up, Jaybush had recovered and was blinking around. «Well!» said the fat man with somewhat forced joviality. «You did it, boy. As surely as if you'd cut her throat with a knife. I'm sorry, Sister Sue, but Rivas has killed you.»
Sister Sue smiled brilliantly at Rivas and caressed her automatic.
Urania, who didn't seem to be following much of this, stared. «Rivas? Greg?»
Rivas nodded, and then managed to choke out, «Yes.»
A moment later he was able to add, «Came to . . . rescue you.» He looked at Jaybush. «That's why . . . no musicians in the renaissance you . . . artificially induced for us? Because music . . . renders you unconscious?»
Jaybush waved his massive arms. «You're all dead!» he called up to the people on the tiers and bridges. He waved at the people on the other rafts. «Everyone!» He lowered his arms and remarked to Rivas, «Yes, that's why. And it's why I still try to suppress it, and why the pocalocas stomp anybody who even whistles a tune. It isn't all music that does it, but I believe a blanket policy is best. It's mainly the irregular rhythms you call gunning, and melodies with the kind of notes they used to call accidentals. Apparently my brain waves correspond in some fashion to your musical scale and times, and are damped out by certain violations of them. If you do that again, of course, my deaf guards will silence you again, and I'll have them bind and gag you so that you needn't feel called upon to interfere when I set about draining these two ladies in the most pleasurable way.» He smiled. «You know, in the buoyancy of salt water I am surprisingly agile, which of course is why I like to have a lot of canals available to me.» His smile grew broader and more kindly. «I really think we understand each other. And I don't see why you should need time to consider my really very generous offer, so I won't give you any time.»